Spirit's Gonna Break, Long Before the Glass
by Redemption by Fire
Summary: WishHenry, is not interested in being everyone's friends. At least, that's what he tells everyone, but even insults don't seem to scare them off. Tired of the confusion his presence presents the dreadful town of Storybrooke, Henry just wants to be left alone. Dr. Hopper stars in this look from inside his office and inside WishHenry's past sufferings. Rated M mostly for language
1. Chapter 1

Henry hated Storybrooke. For multiple reasons. He didn't want to write them out, but somehow his "bitching and moaning" had gotten him into trouble last night at the diner, with the most awkward dinner companions: His "wife", his older "other" and his "daughter". Lucy had made multiple attempts to be his best buddy and make him part of the family and he had gotten rubbed raw with her blatant enthusiasm that he started swearing loudly at her, pulled out his "not tobacco" joint and was removed from the diner before he could even get one good draw from it. And now he was begrudgingly sitting in Dr. Hopper's office, only on the strength of one sad angsty look from his mother, Emma. She was about the only person who could instantly make him feel sad and guilty instead of angry. Everyone else just seemed to be able to rile him up or deflate him.

"You have a list? I want you to read it and expand on each one." Dr. Hopper's words pulled him back out of his thoughts. Thankfully, the awkward looking speckled man, had not done anything but ask him to complain, which was the only reason he was still here.

 **1\. I hate being "another Henry"**

"Now that is understandable. What is the worst part?"

Henry had to think about that: that might deserve it's own list, really. "The worse part is not the confusion, but the assumptions."

The look said to go on. Henry softly snarled. "There are the people who forget that I'm not him and address me as such. There are the people that know that I'm not, but assume that I'm somehow like him."

"Your tone of voice suggests that the second is worse. What do people assume you share?" Dr. Hopper had this frustrating way of making him want to complain more, while at the same time, fantasize about punching him in the face.

"That I'm noble. That I care about people. That I want to hear them talking. I'm not helpful. I don't want to be polite. I refuse to sit here and change what I doing, just because you are damn uncomfortable." Henry's voice rose in pitch with sentence, until the 'damn' came out almost at a squawk.

Henry also hated his changing voice. Slightly embarrassed, he pulled out his 'tobacco' joint, since his other one had been confiscated. He didn't bother to ask if he could smoke and Dr. Hopper didn't stop him.

"Interesting, you started out with things about the Henry everyone else knows and then shifted into what you were not going to do."

Henry shrugged. He was certain however, that "the Henry everyone else knows" was perhaps the best way to describe things that he stayed focused in the conversation.

"What is it that you expected to do, that you don't like?"

Henry drew another puff. "That is another very long list. And we are still on number one here."

Dr. Hopper shrugged. "Give me one example. Something current."

The first thing came to Henry was his recent terrible dinner the previous night. "I don't want to be in his little family."

"You don't want them to associate with you?"

Snorting, Henry realized this was absurd. It was ideal, but absurd. "That would never happen."

"You don't have a say?"

"I never have before." Henry muttered morosely.

Dr. Hopper began to write something down. "What the sard, you writing?"

Dr. Hopper smiled gently, but clearly understanding his phrase. "My own list. You can see it later when I am done, if you'd like?" His smile broadened, "You know I haven't heard someone say sard in ages."

Henry frowned. "So?"

"I miss it, that's all." Dr. Hopper explained with a lightness, as though this was all understandable. "It is always fuck this and that anymore."

Henry couldn't understand why someone clearly polite and calm missed hearing someone throw sex into a sentence where it didn't belong, and suddenly threw out fuck in a sentence: but hey, maybe this might not be so bad coming here after all.

* * *

Emma picked him up outside. "How'd it go?" She softly inquired. Her voice was always so weak around him, like she and him were fragile. Or even worse, that she was fragile. It was hard grappling with the idea that to her, she hadn't known him all his life and that it was just a magic spell. It irked him to see her so much more at ease with the "other" Henry. However, he had to admit to himself that at least she seemed more solid around his other. When she was with him, she seemed to shrink back into the pale wisp, he remembered. And he hated that.

Of course, he said none of that. "He's alright. I'm not sure what this is supposed to solve, however." For effect, he pulled out another cigarette (the ones here tasted nasty, he was going to have to find some leaves and make his own rolls).

Emma didn't say anything to stop him either, but in her it seemed more like defeat than anything. "You never used to smoke."

Henry snorted. "I did, you were just never paying much attention. Plus, couldn't very well let them see. But here see, where I have nothing left, I have stopped caring about what people think."

"It would be better if you didn't make some dramatic show, just to push buttons." Emma pinched her nose. "You could have family and friends, if you just tried."

"And now you sound like my mother." Henry snarled unfriendlylike. "Keep smiling, roll over and play dead."

This seemed to puncture her a bit. Henry almost apologized out of painful habit. He never liked seeing her miserable. He used to do anything to make her laugh.

No. Not anymore. She left him and didn't look back.

"I miss my father."

To any passerby, this would look like a sad, but plaintive statement. It served it's real purpose however. He could hear her sharp intake of breath. At least, if it hadn't all "been real," she still remembered.

"Same time next week, then?" He inquired with a bit of venom as he walked away from her.

"Me too."

It was so quiet, he almost didn't hear it. Almost.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Henry repositioned himself on the couch three times in the first 5 minutes. Dr. Hopper just smiled. "Your mother can never seem to get comfortable on that either."

"I don't want to hear about that."

Dr. Hopper shrugged, "I wasn't going to elaborate."

Henry pulled out his list mostly to firmly move the direction of the conversation quickly away from this.

 **2\. I hate cars. And motorcycles.**

"Ha." Dr. Hopper made a small noise of amusement. "Me neither, I prefer to walk everywhere."

"They make all this noise, they make terrible smoke, no one ever seems to be watching where they are going or going crazy fast in them."

"Have you ridden in one?"

"Yes, that is possibly worse. I don't understand the rules, I don't like the feeling in my stomach, which Regina says is called getting car sick, but sitting in the front doesn't really help much."

"Hmm. That is the first time that you have mentioned Regina. I hear it was an interesting tale, meeting her."

Henry shrugged. "I hated her, then I didn't. We aren't family or best friends or anything. I just changed my mind, that's all."

"That is possibly the most dull version of that story, I have ever heard. Why?"

"Other Henry would have made it into an epic for you, I'm sure." Henry fidgeted and repositioned himself on the couch again.

Dr. Hopper's slight smile faded. "Not for me, I'm afraid."

Henry turned to study the cricket. "He comes in here, but he doesn't talk to you?"

"No, just not in any great detail. In here, at least, you are both grouchy and morose."

Henry sat up quickly, old toying excitement filling him. He was going to… Suddenly, his stomach ached. He had thought of the Dark One again. And that they were…

"Now, I'm not sure if you were about to pick apart me or Henry. But you stopped." Dr. Hopper softly brought his attention to the room. "Why?"

"I didn't want to, I changed my mind," Henry growled and stood up as though to leave.

"I can see that. But why?"

He was for sure not going to say what he was thinking. Henry let the silence linger painfully. Yet, Dr. Hopper didn't seem to mind it. He drank out of his tea like nothing was going on. That irked Henry.

"Why are you so sarding patient?"

Dr. Hopper wiped his glasses very slowly. A smile pulled at the corner of his month. "A compliment as an insult, how interesting!"

"Patience is for people who are never going to get stuff done." Henry muttered and pulled out a better tasting cigarette this time.

"Interesting theory. Who taught you that one?" Dr. Hopper was still cleaning his glasses as though nothing was the matter at all. Didn't he see how terrible this was?

"Nobody, my father always said things would improve, if I was patient. Fat load of manure! It didn't do him any good and it didn't do his father any good."

"So we were thinking about the family tree today?" Dr. Hopper asked as though this was not a question. "Now, I know very few things about Baelfire, aka Neal Cassidy. He wasn't in this realm long before he died and he was quite secretive. What was your father like?"

Henry did not want to talk about his father. "I bet he would have hated cars too."

Dr. Hopper pleasantly laughed. "In this realm, Emma and Neal, which was your father's false name here, met because they were stealing the same car."

This made Henry smile slightly. His father and Emma had met because he was stealing her horse. This made him sadder. His mother always said, he stole her horse and then her heart. This statement always garnered a false smile and narrowed eyes from his grandmother.

"He said be patient, every time I complained that he was being treated unfairly."

"Oh, what was happening?" Dr. Hopper seemed genuinely intrigued all of a sudden.

Hook, line and sinker. Now he was going to get to really shred things up.

"He always seemed to get the harder, more dangerous missions."

"He was a soldier in your grandparent's army, as I understand it." Dr. Hopper prodded slowly.

Henry nodded. He put out his cigarette on the ashtray that suddenly appeared this time on the table.

"Always eternally trying to prove himself worthy." Henry shrugged. "We were always going to be second class citizens."

Dr. Hopper hesitated. "Because you were...born out of wedlock."

Henry's eyes narrowed, but he did not respond. He hated being reminded of that fact, but he had walked the story right into it. And he was aware that the same had been true in this realm too. That hadn't seemed to matter for the Henry who grew up here.

"Can I ask a stupid question?" Dr. Hopper cautiously ventured forward. Henry shrugged. "Why were you going to 'put Regina to justice'?"

Henry swallowed unconsciously. "She killed my grandparents and captured my mother." His eyes narrowed as he studied Dr. Hopper. "But you already knew that."

Dr. Hopper just shrugged.

* * *

It was Regina who ironically met him at the door on his way out. What, was he not capable of finding his new apartment after 3 weeks?

"Are you hungry?" She inquired. She was always trying to feed him as her excuse to talk.

"Not for conversation." Henry quipped back. "I'm full up with talking."

Regina gave him her strange half smile that she seemed to reserve for him not her son, just him. It seemed sad, but strangely hopeful. She had been trying to have a more than surface level anything with him, since the really awkward, 'I'm not going to kill you, instead I'm to cry on your shoulder' moment. With limited success, though, Henry was not interested.

Everyone had wanted to know what had changed his mind, except her. They had never spoken of the event, but Henry seemed to sense that she didn't need to know. Strangely, he felt, she was the only person who really deserved an answer. Preferably the truth too. But she never asked.

"Why do you never ask me about that day?" Henry blurted out before he even knew what he was doing. Fool. Now he couldn't let it drop. "Everyone else does."

Regina seemed to smile a little bigger, the kind that the mouth doesn't grow higher up the cheeks, but the eyes brighten more, so it seems like maybe it had. Then the mouth would oblige and turn up swiftly to match.

"I figure you will talk when you are ready." She avoided with a shrug.

"What do you think?" Henry asked, almost so softly that it was inaudible.

Her smile became solemn, but not her eyes. God, why was he so obsessive? Was it because she was more beautiful than any legend had made him believe? Softer? Sadder?

"I think you saw something that confused you. And you don't like puzzles without solutions. You never have, in any version." She laughed softly at the end of the not really an explanation.

Yes. Maybe so. But he had been plenty confused during his life. Could it really be that he was keeping her alive, for answers?

"If I'm only keeping you around long enough to have my answers, then I would have just left your in the dungeon and quizzed you eternally."

"I didn't say that, you didn't kill me only for some answers."

They had reached his apartment. And for the first time, Henry went inside, but wished that he had agreed to dinner.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"Why do you think, I didn't kill Regina?" Henry started the session off like a struck match into flames. This had been bothering him all week.

"No list today?" Dr. Hopper evaded.

Henry glared at him slightly and preceded.

 **3\. I hate** **my apartment and the people who live there.**

"No privacy, eh?" Dr. Hopper jumped right to the heart of the situation as though he had read the script before coming in today.

"They are loud, they are rude, and they are always starring at me like I'm some sort of freak on display."

"Did you feel you had privacy growing up?" Dr. Hopper jumped right in.

"My room was secluded from most of the noisy parts of the castle." Henry replied, still annoyed that Dr. Hopper was not going to answer his first question.

"Did you enjoy that?"

"Yes, which is why I hate all the noise."

"Yet the last thing you said, seems the most potent. Just like your last litany." Dr. Hopper opened a drawer and drew out an ashtray and a notebook. _"That I'm noble. That I care about people. That I want to hear them talking. I'm not helpful. I don't want to be polite. I refuse to sit here and change what I doing, just because you are damn uncomfortable."_

His words. "Well I don't want to hear them talking, followed by not being polite and refusing to change your behaviors because people are uncomfortable. See interesting...same basic order."

"Who cares? So my complaints are really all the same." Henry shrugged.

"No. Because you don't like cars, because they make you sick and you have a lack of control."

"And the noise and the smell." Henry protested.

"So hang out with people who are quiet." Dr. Hopper challenged. "Except you don't seem to like that either." He flipped his page back. "Emma stated upon your admission as a client, the first week, that you had gotten into fights with just about everyone and were very rude at the diner. Henry was an "invasive prick", Jacinta "saltless but not colorless" and Lucy, "never damn shuts up, not even to put food in her mouth" but also people who were not even there: Snow for "always flying the colors" and David was "a flourless mule" and you particularly were super rude to Neal for being "so sarding quiet" and you called Killian "muck that you clear out of your throat so you can breathe."

Henry grinned as he was reminded of some of his great insults.

"Funny, no insult for Emma."

Henry smiled a jester's grin and turned the tables. "Funny that she remembered and quoted those all back to you perfectly."

Dr. Hopper almost seemed impressed for a second. But Henry knew he was playing a master.

"You also never mentioned Regina."

Henry sighed. "So what? I hardly know the real her."

"Ah, see now, but you don't really know the other people you insulted either. You knew other versions of some of them, perhaps, but you haven't really tried to get to know them."

"Not really interested."

"You want to be left alone." Dr. Hopper looked back over his notes again.

Henry was about to answer yes, with the 'are you stupid tone of voice', when it died in his throat. He was all alone. No father, no grandparents, and his mother considered her time in his life 'a nightmare delusion" she had escaped. At least, she had escaped.

"No, I just don't want to talk to them." He answered truthfully, a taste bitter in his mouth.

"So, new friends, who don't remind you of what you have lost?" Dr. Hopper posed with the smile of someone building towards a punchline.

"Yeah, sure."

"Yet, you still want to figure out Regina. Why didn't you kill her, Henry?"

Henry growled, "I already answered that. I asked you what you thought."

"Which means either your not certain of the answer or you want to know me better."

"You are irritating."

"Guess not the second one then." Dr. Hopper made a forced, almost comical, theatrical frown.

* * *

A car pulled up this time to greet him. Seated in the front two seats were the Hook he remembered, who had somehow unaged and was going by Rodgers now and a blonde girl, whom he had heard through the town gossip one couldn't help but hear, was his daughter. Though the two now looked closer to brother and sister in age, the original dynamic was present loud and clear and their gestures and words with each other.

He had spent almost no time in their presence, aside from watching them during meetings about how to get the realms united before they had made their way to Storybrooke.

Either the Gods were playing an amusing game of chess with his life or someone had spread the word that Henry did not want to interact with his 'family.'

The girl/woman was wearing strange clothes for even Storybrooke and she rolled down her window. "Hop in, if you want a lift. It's about to rain."

Henry looked up. The clouds were indeed very grey and impeding.

He hated cars, but he hated being wet more, so he hopped in the back seat.

Rodgers slide a glance back at him through the mirror, but didn't say anything. They both continued whatever conversation they had been having as though he weren't there.

"So Robin asked me officially to marry her, but you dare act like you didn't know or that she didn't ask you."

Her father shook his head with a smile. "I did not know that she was going to ask you today. But yes, I knew it was coming."

"I'm nervous, daddy. I don't know." The rain started pouring down fiercely as though it wanted to give her the proper mood for her statement. "I'm not sure that it's for the best."

"You didn't say, yes?" This appeared to shock him. He turned his eyes from the road to look at her.

"I didn't say no."

"Will you please, for the Gods' sake, look at the road." Henry growled. His stomach was already hurting him.

Rodgers looked back, but it was clear he was peeved.

"I'm not sure I'm anyone's wife material. You know what's wrong with me. It hasn't gotten much better, not even with all the meds they put me on these days. Which I don't like, but I'm taking them." She added, seeming to anticipate his next question.

They pulled up to his apartment. It was still pouring hard, so at first Henry didn't move to open the door.

His mistake. The girl, Alice, maybe, turned around to look at him. "Would you marry someone with a mental illness?"

Great. Henry sighed deeply, annoyed that he had become more roped into this unfortunate free tv drama. He did like Netflix, perhaps a little too much, but never the sarding romances or tv dramas. And he never loved any girl, or boy for that matter, so what did he know? Except that he wasn't going to get away without answering.

"Do you love her? Does she love you?" Henry peevishly responded turning the conversation back on her and her relationship.

"Yes. And I know she does." Alice responded with more fervor then the whole rest of the conversation.

"Then marry her." Henry shrugged.

"But things could go terribly wrong. I could be a horrible burden, and I don't know about children. What if I have a bad day and..."

Henry cut her off. Dear Gods, he did not want to hear all this.

"Oh, you will be. It will all go terribly wrong some day, so enjoy it while you can."

With this Henry dramatically flung the door open into the rain, dashing into his apartment, where he ate canned soup and sat alone watching mind numbing baking shows, so no one next door could hear him crying.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Henry was in even a more morose mood the next time he got together with Dr. Hopper. To be honest, everyone seemed to be avoiding him now, even his neighbors looked away instead of staring.

He was wearing the same pair of jeans and shirt he had been three days before, right before Emma had picked him up and he swore she almost cried looking at his unclean apartment, sink full of dishes, clothes lying on the floor, half eaten bag of chips in the couch cushions and an ashtray full of cigarette butts and bunch of empty beer bottles. She made him change his shirt and he had obliged just so he could stop looking at her near tears. While he was changing he could hear her picking up clothes and putting them in the washer.

Henry didn't speak for the first 15 mins of the session, before yelling at Dr. Hopper that he wasn't doing his job.

"My job is to listen to you. I am ready when you are."

He was so damn sarding calm. It made Henry so angry. Before he knew it, he was on his feet with more vitriol.

"You are the worse cricket I have ever met and you just sit there and try to find where there isn't any chain mail and just poke around."

Dr. Hopper shrugged. "Am I going to be added to your list of things you hate about Storybrooke?"

This stopped Henry in his tracks, which also pissed him off.

"The list, you know, that we've been discussing."

Henry stuck his hands in his pants and realized, 1. He hadn't brought it. And 2. Emma had probably just thrown those pants into the wash.

"Yeah sure, whatever. You can be the new first thing on the list."

"You're a man of action. So tell me, what are you going to do about this terrible thing you hate called Dr. Hopper, the worst cricket ever?"

Part of Henry froze deep to the core. No way, was he going to…

"I'm a man of action, huh?" He screamed back, (no, those were angry tears) "Always got to have something to do, to prove I belong."

"I didn't say that."

"So I should get a job, clean myself up, stop watching Netflix shows all day, and get a life?" Henry just continued screaming as though there was an actual opponent instead of a void.

"Are those things that you want? What do you want?" Dr. Hopper replied as calm as ever.

"I don't know, what I want...that's the whole problem. I didn't even kill the person responsible for all of my damn fucking suffering!"

"Is she? Cause it seems to me, that that person is you."

"Of course she is." Henry growled back still standing looming over Dr. Hopper like a possessed man.

"Then why didn't you make her suffer? Why is she still breathing?"

"Cause I know it wouldn't help. I'd still be alone and miserable. So what's the point?" Henry slowly began to deflate like a balloon with a leak.

"That doesn't sound like a reason to give up a fight. That sounds like a reason to give up."

Henry paused. "Sometimes that's what you do. You realize there is no ending where you win."

"Villains don't get happy endings."

Henry shrugged. "Something like that."

A knowing smile graced Dr. Hopper's face. "I've heard that somewhere before."

The bottom of Henry's stomach dropped out and cheeks clenched at the same time.

"Rumplestitskin said that."

And I'm despicable just like him, Henry kept to himself.

"That seemed to be a sentiment he felt worth spreading. Doesn't mean it's true. Besides, I don't really believe in villains."

Henry looked up confused and pissed. "What so you don't believe in them, so they don't exist?"

Dr. Hopper shrugged with a smile. "Pretty much. It's a matter of perspective, really."

"So they do exist, you just don't choose to see them, just sitting in sarding denial." Henry contested gruffly.

"I don't believe it is a perspective worth taking. Not that there aren't those who do, I just don't think it helps anyone." Dr. Hopper was so painfully patient. Henry instantly thought his father and tears threatened to flow again, so he stood up abruptly again, ready to burn them away with another shot.

"You miss him an awful lot. Your father."

The rug had been pulled from underneath him. Before he knew it, Henry was sobbing. "That was a sarding low blow!"

"There is no shame in missing someone who deeply cared about you. Sometimes you felt like he was the only one?" There was a question hanging on the end of his statement. Henry wiped his face on his sleeve, leaving snot marks.

"How long has he been dead, Henry?"

"Three years."

"Is that what pushed your mother over the edge?"

Henry looked up in surprise. "You...you see my mother in here don't you?"

"You already know that."

"She over worries about me. They all do."

"I already know that."

Henry frowned. "You agree?"

"Yes."

He wasn't sure he believed him at first, Henry narrowed his eyes and asked again. "You think they over worry about me?"

"I think in their worry that they are missing out on how they are not really helping." Dr. Hopper massaged between his eyebrows, showing the first sign of weariness in any of the sessions thus far.

"I think you'll find, that you have no Netflix, internet, television and no credit cards when you come home. Just a few clothes, and your rent payments will remain. Because at least one of them has agreed to take my advice."

"Wait, what?" Henry jumped up angrily again.

"If you can sit around and wallow in your misery, then you will. Pretty much a guarantee, actually."

"You can't do this, you can't just convince them to take more of my things away!" Henry yelled angrily. "I'm not going to let this happen!"

"What are you going to do? Kill her instead?" Dr. Hopper quipped.

...it was Regina. Regina was paying for his home, his utilities, his clothes, food, and Netflix. He had joked when he saw her place for the first time and remarked that it was hardly a castle. She had shrugged, said it was hers. Lucy had volunteered however, that she was loaded owning a good portion of the place and didn't need to work a day in her life. Sometime about early investing in an Apple?

Yet, she chose to work.

Henry figured it was because she'd be bored out of her mind without something to do.

"Wait, Regina, the Evil Queen listens to you?" Henry asked with a humorous tilt of his head.

Dr. Hopper seemed to think this amusing too. "At this point, at least." He grinned like a long satisfied man at the end of a long day.

* * *

Henry left his session still pissed, but calmer. He was now expecting his stuff to be missing when he walked in the door, but it wasn't really his, he supposed. He did not expect there to be people in his apartment. Killian Jones and Detective Rodgers were finishing leaving. Rodgers was placing something on the now empty and clean table.

"Your mom had to be extracted from cleaning in here. I have never seen her look so much like her own mother as when I had to rip a sponge from her hand." The sheriff pirate quipped. He grabbed a box full of what looked like his tv remotes. "I was supposed to take your phone too, but I 'couldn't find it'" He then air quoted with his hook, which Henry did not exactly understand. He winked. "Wouldn't want you to have no way to _never_ contact any of us." He smirked. "Personally, I am so damn attached now to mine, that it'd be like loosing another hand."

Rodgers rolled his eyes at...himself? Sometimes it was easier to see which one was really the older one, and sometimes not. Henry found himself laughing. This seemed to pleasantly surprise both of them and they smiled and started to head out.

"Love the tirade, by the way. It took all my will power not to laugh when Emma took me you called David a 'flourless mule' oh, boy. The image was so vivid, I could almost see it. David tied to a stone going around and around and never grinding any flour, because there isn't any...ho, ho!"

"He also called you "muck you clear from your throat so you could breathe." Rodgers reminded him jocularly.

"Touché! Or was that to both of us?" Killian quipped back.

Henry just stood there stunned. They were...happy. He had insulted them and they were laughing. Suddenly, he felt more miserable. Was it really a matter of how they chose to see things? Or was he just that pathetic, that nobody took him seriously?

They turned to leave, but Henry stopped them. "You guys forgot your snow globe on the table."

Rodgers and Jones shared a look between them. "It isn't ours."

Jones walked out the door tentatively, but Rodgers remained. "It was Detective Wheeler's. Mr. Gold, The Dark One, Rumplstiltskin, whatever."

Henry bristled. Why were they leaving that _things'_ possessions here?

Rodgers sat down in a chair at the table and flipped the globe with his hand. "You know, your grandfather died to save me and everyone else. I never did seem to understand him, not even at the end. I'm not sure he really understood himself either."

He set the globe down and watched the snow fall over the little cabin in the center. "Now that I share his heart, however, I find that seem to understand more than I would like. I think the globe felt like his world view. To remind him that he was always on the inside where is it is so cold and snowy and everyone else was on the other side of the glass."

He frowned slightly. "Don't stay inside the snow globe, Henry. Please, let us help you get out."

He stood up to leave. "Your spirit's gonna break long before the glass."


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note: So this story is going to shine lights on people who were introduced and ignored by the series for other plots. I decided to give backstories and explanations all my own. Knowing that Neal had almost no screen time when not an infant, and seemed to be kept out of the limelight more often than necessary that I decided to give him a credible reason for wanting that.

Chapter 5

Henry begrudgingly showed up for the 12th family dinner that he had been invited to, mostly because he had no tv, no internet, no anything to amuse himself and no food left in his apartment and no credit cards that magically bought it for him. His non-confiscated cell phone reminded him once again that he was still welcome.

He had made a point to wear clean clothes at least and combed his hair, so nobody would overly fuss over him, or look teary-eyed.

He rang the door-bell to Emma's house. Everyone was already gathered as per the chatter and laughter in the dining room, audible outside the house. He almost turned around, but his stomach won over his pride. It was Regina who opened the door and her eyes brightened and then cooled in response to what must have been visible panic written across Henry's face.

"Hang on." She closed the door. He could hear her shushing everyone. She then opened the door again and gestured him into the room. He stiffly sat in the proffered seat at the table, and tried not to look at anyone in the eyes.

Neal plopped down in the seat next to him. Silent as usual. He pulled out his tablet and was playing games on it. This seemed to calm Henry a bit, the fact that he was ignoring him and yet not making a big deal about sitting next to him either. Henry remembered being 9. It was when he had first learned what being a bastard meant.

"Glad to see you aren't mad at me for the last dinner." Henry muttered softly. Neal looked up abruptly from his game and smiled. He closed it quickly when his mother approached and began pulling up what looked like a grid with pictures and words. Snow bent down and asked him what he wanted to eat and he pointed to a picture. "Pizza" The tablet said out loud. "There is no pizza available today," Snow responded. Neal frowned, and slowly pushed another button, "mashed potatoes," the tablet spoke.

Suddenly, something clicked. "You don't speak, AT ALL." Henry muttered. "Oh!" He felt so stupid. He wasn't sure what was wrong with him, but it was clear that it was common place for the fake voice to be his normal method of communicating with his own mother.

Snow was about to comment, "Neal has this condition called Autism where..." but Neal growled at her and she stopped. He pulled up some sort of video search, with a white arrow in a red box.

A cartoon drawing of a crazy looking group of people running around chasing each other. It was what Neal was watching last time he was over here, on the TV. There looked to be a magical vial and the witchy looking woman turned into a white kitten. "Is this my voice, is this my VOICE, is this MY voice?" The kitten squeaked. "Oh well!" The chase then continued.

Henry couldn't help, but slightly chuckle. The boy was funny and sarcastic, not bland or frightened like he thought at all.

The mood shifted perceptibly with this interaction, everyone seeming to be less tense: all except for the Henry everyone else knew. He still looked like he was tightly wound, but now it seemed unusual, since everyone else had just relaxed.

This was important. This was painful. Henry was tense. And so was the Henry everyone else knew. Why?

Here he was with his supposedly loving family, all of whom he adored, and the Henry everyone else knew, was tense.

Henry tried to play the last interaction again in his mind. He looked over at Jacinda, which everyone also called Ella, staring her over. She seemed to sense his gaze and met his eyes, intensity reflected back at him unnervingly. He didn't understand what was going on, but she seemed to.

He looked back over at the Henry everyone else knew and her gaze followed his. She seemed to frown out of the corner of his eye and placed a hand on her husband's back. This relaxed him only the slightest.

Suddenly, Henry had a thought. He looked back over at Neal and his tablet, whom was eating a plate of only mashed potatoes. Then he looked over at Lucy, who was babbling away at some story, talking to her grandfather.

Everyone here was talking, but nobody was communicating.

Suddenly, as the outsider, he had three choices. Walk away, play along, or burn down walls.

It was something _his_ grandmother, not the youthful, yet just as tightly wound version that lived here, had taught him.

Henry suddenly stood up. Immediately, he had all the attention in the room, as he expected. Tension was back, the air thick with it. Was he about to upset the balance, insult everyone, storm off?

The power was in his hands. And he always preferred burning things.

"Clearly, I don't know anything about any of you. And you don't know anything about me." Henry pronounced. "And I have always been a man of action." Henry continued, using Dr. Hopper's description of him.

He avoided his mother, Emma's eyes, since only she had to power to truly silence him. "Maybe we would all get along better if this changed. Or maybe not, and you'll realize that you want nothing to do with me. Either way, I'm tired this terrible dance everyone is doing around me."

The mood was slowly shifting, Henry could feel it. He hid his quivering hand in his jean pockets. "So I'm going to give people a chance to ask me a question. And I will then answer and ask you a question."

He tried not to think about how much the Henry everyone else knew, was still tense. He stole a glance over at Emma. She looked tired, instead of relieved.

That's when Henry knew, she had not been telling people the truth about their realm and their relationship. Seems the lie detector, was lying. But...not to Dr. Hopper. He seemed to not be surprised about his father's recent death or his surely attitude about the past. But then nothing seemed to faze him , so maybe he wasn't a good measure.

Lucy broke the ice, as he expected. "What's your favorite food?"

Henry softly smiled. An easy question. "Cheese. Any kind, but especially those fried ones you can get at the diner."

"And yours?" He prompted, when she looked poised to ask another question.

"Oh, right." She frowned for a moment. "Hot Chocolate. Chocolate. Seriously, I'd eat candy all day, if they let me."

This prompted a wave of light laughter.

David strode in with the next question, "What do you miss most from your realm that you wish was here, in Storybrooke?"

Henry's mood immediately darkened. He didn't really miss it, too many memories and it felt like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders, when he no longer had to run his grandparent's kingdom. This was not an answer they were going to like however.

"My father." He replied with a soft growl. "But, he's been dead for a few years now."

As he expected, there was a look exchanged between Snow and David, one that looked all too familiar and all too difficult to understand. His mother had joked that they shared their own secret language. Henry had agreed, especially about the secrets.

"And you?" He prompted dicey when David was slow to continue the pattern, still trying to juggle something in his head.

David gave a syrupy smile, "Everything I like best, is with me here." He noticed Henry's frown and quickly added, "But if I must pick something, then the ability to see more stars in the night sky. Too many lights even in a small town."

So still a country man at heart. No surprise there.

Even though he could sense Neal furiously poking his tablet next to him, it was Emma's husband, a phrase he still had trouble getting used to, Killian Jones, who asked the next question. "When you found out your grandfather was the Dark One, how did you take that?"

Henry wasn't sure whether his heart raced faster before or after Emma made a not so subtle noise and an elbow to Killian's side, it happened all so quickly. Spots began forming in his vision and Henry was sure a slight verbal disagreement had broken out, but he could no longer hear words, his ears full of his own blood pumping.

Instantly, someone stood, the grating noise of a chair sliding back and then wobbling, snapping Henry back into his thoughts, as it had so many other times before, when such a gesture from his grandmother had indicated a topic was over. He looked over from Killian, where he had still been staring, to see who had moved.

It was Henry, who had stood. "You are all, a bunch of..."

He was cut off however, by both Emma and Killian's pagers going off simultaneously. Emma looked with the speed only borne of desperation.

"Holy Shit!" She leapt from the table, Killian quickly following suit.

There was a collective murmur of "What's" around the table, or "Do you need help?"

"It's Alexandria." Emma replied bluntly as she put on her coat quickly. "She's missing and there's...a note."

Regina quickly joined the parade out the door, but not without a long questioning look to her son first. He dismissed her with a curt nod, which she accepted but not with another long look that Henry wasn't sure its meaning.

The tablet voice said, "No, Thanks." And Jacinda immediately offered to clean up the kitchen/stay with Neal and Snow and David, thanked her profusely, and grabbed their coats as well. Lucy waited until the door closed, shrugged and then asked Neal if he wanted to play something called a Playstation.

They quickly left the room, leaving the two Henrys, still standing awkwardly alone in the dining room with Jacinda crossing back occasionally to pick up a dish.

The older, and now more worn looking Henry defeatedly sighed and closed his eyes. He sat back down and placed his head in his hand.

Maybe, if Henry had actually been brave, he would have stayed and talked, but he was not. He was a coward, just like every family member he had. Whether that family member was the Dark One or a bunch of heroes, rushing off to save someone, while their own family members drowned around them. Fucking Sard all of them. Henry grabbed his coat, stuffed an almost whole brick of cheese on the cheese board into his pocket and stormed out.


End file.
